Mistakes Were Made

Once ovarian cancer has been diagnosed, it takes some general practitioners more than one month to record the diagnosis, according to a new study.

Ovarian cancer was incorrectly or prematurely recoded in 11 percent of cases, which are recorded in the General Practice Research Database (GPRD) in the United Kingdom, according to the study.

Researchers looked at anonymous medical data from 2002 to 2007 (including codes related to diagnosis of ovarian cancer for women aged 40 to 80) on more than four million patients across the U.K.

During the study period, 344 women were given one of three codes related to ovarian cancer diagnosis, about 22 percent of which diagnosis was confirmed before it was officially coded in the patient's record. In one in 10 cases, the diagnosis arrived after four weeks had lapsed from initial diagnosis.

Ovarian cancer, the deadliest and second most prevalent gynecological cancer, afflicted 19,994 women in the United States in 2006, the most recent year for which statistics are available.